Friday, August 8, 2008

Uh-Oh...

Looks like Rule # 7 of my last post was a jinx! John Kricfalusi, who has said in the past that he didn't want to do a revival of Looney Tunes, has just contradicted himself. (He seems to do that a fair amount.) I thought all we had to worry about was copycats...now we have to worry about the real thing!

Now, before this turns into some overblown rumor or controversy, keep in mind that these are just doodles Kricfalusi has posted on his own blog, mentioning the possibility of pitching an idea to Warner Bros.. As you can tell from the drawing above, it's clear that John's style is better suited to his own characters...just look at those arms and legs on Bugs! I'm sure he has great respect for these characters, he's been trying to imitate Bob Clampett his entire life. But having seen what he did to Hanna-Barbera's Yogi Bear and George Jetson, my greatest fear is that, should Warner take him up on the offer, he'll do the same to Bugs and Pals. I don't want to see that happen!

With "Ren and Stimpy", Kricfalusi's only significant contribution to animation, he brought farts, boogers, puke, and kinky sexual innuendo to animation. (Well, I guess the kinky sex credit belongs to Ralph Bakshi, but John K. was no stranger to it.)

I doubt John reads this blog. But John, if you read this, please, I beg you: Please be respectful of these characters. If for some reason you succeed in this diabolical plot, do your hero proud. Make Bob Clampett smile, rather than solving the energy crisis by turning him into a grave-spinning power generator!

Wow, thanks for responding, John! I appreciate that. So your idea is just "wrap-arounds" then? Well, if it gets the classics back on TV in some form, I guess I can't bee too critical. A new "Bugs Bunny Show" would be a great thing. Just...please...don't do what you did to Yogi!

The sketches have a lot of life and vitality in them, but they aren't very aesthetically pleasing. A lot of what I've seen from John has had an imperfect balance of high energy and unappealing character design - but if this isn't going to be a full-blown show, it might not be that bad. As wraparounds or bumpers, I can see it being more akin to doodles in the corner of a notebook, and it might be a good jumping off point to getting the classic cartoons back on TV.

Your "Rules of New Looney Tunes Cartoons" are very clever rules. I usually see two postures on the internet: the snobbish bastards that are full of hate, and the ones that went too far on being the John K fan club (sorry, it's just a generalization). It's nice to see reasonable thought sometimes. Reasonable criticism. I don't like everything Kricfalusi does. But I'm almost sure that he's a reasonable guy and doesn't buy his fans "you're god" shit, as you can see in his comment.

Well, if John K, does make these new wraparounds after WB says it's okay, it may mean we won't have to worry about Billy West badgering anyone to voice the Looney Tunes as long as Kricfalusi is at the helm.

Well, if John K, does make these new wraparounds after WB says it's okay, it may mean we won't have to worry about Billy West badgering anyone to voice the Looney Tunes as long as Kricfalusi is at the helm.

Yeah, but Billy does a good Elmer Fudd and I can't think of anyone else who could do a voice so close to Arther Q. Bryan's original.

I like these drawings. The proportions of the characters have been greatly exaggerated, but that doesn't mean that the final art (if the idea ever gets off the ground) will look like this. I'm confident that the end results will look like something straight out of a McKimson model sheet (Clampett era, of course).

I have a poster by Lynn Naylor and John Kricfalus (sic: that's how his name is spelled on the poster, or should I say, misspelled), for the American Museum of the Moving Image's tribute to Bob Clampett. It contains a perfect drawing of Bugs Bunny on it. So, rest easy, folks.

And with that ignorant, and rather idiotic statement, any possibility of credibility you have is now, forever void.

It always amazes me when people with their heads up their asses can't see anything past the clear, outer packaging to see the true product behind the plastic.

If you aren't capable of seeing the much more obvious contributions to modern animation than THAT, then I honestly feel sorry for your limited and short-sighted view on the medium in general.

Ren and Stimpy's largest contribution was the revival of an artform long dead and skewered by an executives system, that maintained animation's "dead and buried" status for over 2 modern decades. It may have been shortlived, but it was the only real honest and (for a time) completly successful attempt at it in 20 years.

Your complete ignorance of this fact destroys any credibility you might have of an intelligent viewpoint.